Men's Basketball 6/13/2013 3:26:00 PM

Mountain Cats Fall to Alderson-Broaddus in WVIAC Quarterfinals

03/03/2011

Sixth-seeded Alderson-Broaddus (WV) College raced out to a 15-0 lead and held the third-seeded Mountain Cats, who lead the nation in field goal percentage, to just 33.3% shooting in a 77-60 victory in Wednesday's WVIAC Tournament Quarterfinals at the Civic Center in Charleston, W.Va. Patrick Grubbs (Turtle Creek, Pa.) scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds for Pitt-Johnstown, which ended the year with an 18-10 record.
Alderson-Broaddus came out hot and got 10 quick points from Nate Barnes and five from Carl Buck to open-up a 15-0 lead 3:12 into the game.
The Mountain Cats settled down and used a 20-6 run to cut the deficit to one with 8:17 remaining in the half.
Jordan Miller's (Vinco, Pa.) short jumper got Pitt-Johnstown on the scoreboard, before a Nick Novak (Murrysville, Pa.) basket 8:25 into the game make it 19-13.
Danny Branch (Washington, D.C.) then connected on a pair of free-throws just over two minutes later to get the Mountain Cats to within one at 21-20.
The Battlers countered with a 17-10 run of their own to close out the half. Roy Brown's three-pointer at 3:39 pushed the Alderson-Broaddus lead back out to 11, before the Battlers went into the halftime break up 38-30.
Buck hit a three-pointer for the Battlers to open the second half and extend the lead to 11.
Pitt-Johnstown scored the next five, capped by Branch's three-pointer, to cut it to 41-35 at 17:13, but Alderson-Broaddus countered with an 18-5 run to build the lead to 19 on Brown's breakaway dunk 5:24 later.
The Mountain Cats continued to battle. Pitt-Johnstown got four points from Grubbs and a free-throw from Paul Weatherly (Johnstown, Pa.) in a 9-2 spurt to pull to within 12 at 61-49 with 6:40 left.
After Alderson-Broaddus pushed it back out to 16, Branch connected on another three-pointer with 3:11 left to get it down to 11, but it never got any closer.
Grubbs led three Mountain Cats who scored in double-figures with 14 points and eight rebounds. Branch finished with 13 points and four rebounds, while Novak rounded out the double-figure scorers with 10 points and four assists. Noah Hartung (Butler, Pa.) grabbed five rebounds, and Weatherly pulled down four rebounds,for Pitt-Johnstown.
Pitt-Johnstown shot just 33.7% (19-57) from the field, 5-20 from three-point range and just 17-26 from the free-throw line. Alderson-Broaddus, which held a 46-32 advantage in rebounding, shot 48.5% (32-66) from the floor, 7-20 from behind the three-point line, and 6-6 from the charity stripe.
Branch, who ended his career as the Mountain Cats career leader in three-point field goals-made with 269, also ranks fourth on the Pitt-Johnstown All-Time Scoring List with 1,521 points. Grubbs stands in 10th-place on the scoring list with 1,294 points and third on the all-time rebounding list with 743.
Buck scored a game-high 19 points and had seven rebounds to lead Alderson-Broaddus. Barnes chipped in 17 points, and Brown had 13 points for the Battlers, who improved to 19-11 and advance to the WVIAC Semifinals on Friday.

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